


Bumps in the Road Remind Us

by apatternedfever



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: A Study in Pink, Alternate Universe, Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-05
Updated: 2013-03-05
Packaged: 2017-12-04 10:00:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/709499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apatternedfever/pseuds/apatternedfever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John should walk away now, before he changes everything. Before he gives himself away. He should, but he won't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bumps in the Road Remind Us

**Author's Note:**

> Technically written for a Sherlock kinkmeme prompt, but I've since lost the prompt.

John has made it through two deductions (heart pounding, terrified he's going to give his secrets away but apparently even one of the two most perceptive men he's ever met cannot detect the impossible) and a phone call with an all-too-familiar voice on the other end, and this? This is where he should walk away. The car rolling to a stop, someone he has to pretend he's never met in the seat next to him and an even more familiar figure in front of the headlights -- this is where he should step out, say _you win and I'm going to walk away_ , and stop this insanity before he gets any more involved.

He knew this was coming. He'd tried not thinking about the consequences of what he's doing but they're impossible to ignore now, as he climbs out of the car. This isn't even the most serious one, there's so many more important things to think about, but as he moves forward and tries to look angry instead of upset, there's only one thing on his mind.

_Father, Father, Father,_ he feels like he's sixteen and dizzy and lost all over again, realizing he can't get home, and he doesn't know why he thought this was a good idea, why he thought he could keep up the charade, it's got to be written all over his face, anger can only hide so much. 

Except apparently twenty years of living the lie has made it believable, even when he feels like it's falling apart with every word.

He watches his father walk away and tries to be relieved by it, instead of disappointed.

\---

According to his documents, John Watson is thirty-eight, and his sister is one year older.

It's a lie.

John had been sixteen the day his sister picked the lock on their father's office, the two of them bored and curious and not expecting anything all that more interesting than the rest of the times they'd snuck into the locked areas of the house.

It had seemed like a better idea, when they were setting up their identites as John and Harriet Watson, to be of legal age, so John went up two years.

\---

"Me and Harry don't get on, never have," John says, and it's a bit of a lie, but not much. There was a time they were close -- they'd always had their arguments, but they'd also always looked out for each other. Their parents had always told them how important family was, and once the impossible happened, it had seemed even more important to stick together.

It's not the drinking that drove them apart. John's not happy about it, but he can't blame Harry for finding a way to escape. He has his own methods of forgetting -- sometimes he'll even join Harry in hers.

Clara is another story.

He likes Clara -- she's a lovely woman, very kind, very good to Harry. He'd been glad to see Harry going for somebody good for her, glad to see the relationship going well, right up until the day Harry told him she was going to tell Clara what had happened.

John's not proud of the things he said that day, but he's never apologized for thinking it's a bad idea, and to Harry that's as good as never apologizing for any of it.

Two months later John signed up for the army.

They've never been the same since.

\---

Harry is poking at the keypad on the safe they found on father's desk, idly trying to guess the combination, and John is sitting on the desk, drumming his fingers on the top of the safe and suggesting numbers, when the world goes upside-down.

John will never know how the device works, or what the magic combination was that triggered it; all he knows is the feeling of falling, of being turned inside-out, and then they're falling to the floor in a heap of limbs, the safe and the desk both gone, the room around them completely different (it's still father's office, it's the right shape and size, the right view out of the window, but it's all different, all wrong), and he's too dizzy to move.

\---

John climbs back into the car and tells himself he's not going back. He'll text, or call, say thanks but no thanks to Sherlock ( _Uncle_ Sherlock, god, what was he _thinking_ trying to go through with this), and pretend this whole night never happened.

But he knows well enough that he's lying to himself, and he doesn't even bother to tell the car to go on when they stop at the tiny flat his things are at; he might as well take advantage of the ride, even with the awkward silence. 

(He remembers when she started working for father, he'd been six and she'd been friendly, asked him what his favorite name was and always used it in front of him, used to sneak him and Harry sweets when they rode in the car with her, gave him tips on what to say when he was fourteen and nervous and trying to figure out how to ask the pretty girl in his class on a date.)

The smart thing to do, he thinks again and again that night -- after he's been called to the flat to text a murderer, when he's running after a cab, during the damn drugs bust, before he shoots a man, when he sees his father standing on the sidelines -- would be to walk away now.

John's not smart enough to do it.

\---

"What do we do now?" Harry asks, leaning against him on a bench and staring at the newspaper in his hands.

Their house is not their house; nobody they recognize lives there anymore. They won't be born for another eleven years. Their parents haven't even met yet.

John keeps telling himself this in the hopes that he'll start to properly believe it.

He should start thinking, start trying to plan, but it hasn't sunk in and he still feels detached and dizzy, and John just shakes his head. "I don't know."


End file.
